Let Go
by My Sharpie Is Green
Summary: He’s terrified to think what Young Jim would think of Jim Now.  [S2][ONESHOT][JIMCENTRIC]


This writer's strike is annoying me. I mean, they're not asking for much and the producers don't have shows without writers. Give them what they want!

I have to admit, after "Branch Wars," this week's episode disappointed me, but it was still good. Some S2 Jim-centric stuff I poured out.

**Let Go**

He's staring down at a piece of paper on his desk, his mouth curved downward and his brows furrowed as he reads. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Pam rise from her desk and he quickly crumples the sheet and throws it in the wastebasket before she reaches his desk.

"Jim, are you okay? You look sick."

"Yeah. I mean, uh, yeah. I'm not feeling so good. I think I'm going to go home."

"Oh. Alright." She places her hand on the edge of his desk and then picks it up quickly. "So, um, I'll see you tomorrow, then? Maybe?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow."

"Okay. Well, feel better."

"Thanks."

She leaves and he bends down to take his briefcase, picking the piece of paper out of the garbage as he reaches.

When he walks into his house, he drops his briefcase indiscriminately at the door and pulls the wrinkled sheet out of the pocket of his coat. It's a list of all of the things he would have accomplished by thirty that he made when he was six; its full of disjointed letters and poor grammar, but he can't help but feel nostalgic as he remembers writing it on his mother's legal pad. It had been a class assignment, and on the top of the page he'd written, "Things To Do Before I'm Thirty and Old."

He'd wanted to travel – he'd pledged to have set foot on all seven continents, even "the cold snowy one no one goes to." He'd be married, with five kids, and he'd have a "funny" job.

Now he's twenty-eight; thirty's staring him in the face and he hasn't accomplished a single thing on the list he found in his mother's attic. The farthest he's ever been from Pennsylvania was his trip to Florida, during spring break of his freshman year of college when he'd gotten hopelessly drunk and ridiculously sick. With the exception of the odd trip to New York, he hasn't left Scranton since he took the job at Dunder Mifflin. He hates his job and he's in love with his best friend. His engaged best friend.

Reading over the list again, he thinks that somehow his entire life got lost in translation and he just wants to get it back. He wants to do something, anything on this list, this pathetic piece of the past that shouldn't matter, but seems like everything right now. This piece of paper – the long, yellow sheet with its wide blue-ruled lines and jagged edge where he'd carelessly ripped it out – is a seal of his failure. A reminder that he didn't even pass his own test.

He's never left the continental United States, let alone traveled the world. He's a paper salesman at a second-rate supplier in second-rate Scranton, working with second-rate coworkers and a second-rate boss. And Pam… She's set to marry the wrong guy, and he's going to let her. He's going to let her slip away because it's easier if they don't get involved. If things aren't strange and awkward when he catches her eye from his desk. He's living a second-rate life, and he hates it.

He's terrified to think what Young Jim would think of Jim Now, and he's glad he doesn't have to face the little boy with the goofy haircut and see the crestfallen look on his face as he realizes what he grows up to be. He imagines the childish names he'd call his future self, if they ever met.

So he goes into his kitchen and digs out the phone book from the back of a cupboard, and flips to the "T"s, making an appointment with the travel agency nearest Dunder Mifflin. He calls Jan and asks to transfer. Anything, everything, to selvage the mockery of his former ambitions that he's become.

He puts the phone down and looks at the list one last time. He starts to crumple it again, holding it in his fist before smoothing it out again and hanging it on the front of his fridge.

Because there's some things that you never, ever give up on. And this is one of them.


End file.
